


Examination

by anatsuno



Category: lotrips
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mirrors, Podfic Welcome, navelgazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-12
Updated: 2004-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-17 20:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anatsuno/pseuds/anatsuno





	Examination

It's weird, maybe (he's been told it is), but Elijah never thinks of himself as pretty.

It's not because he's a dude and dudes don't do that-- he's an actor, actors _do_ do that, look at themselves like he's doing now; actors stand in front of the mirror and inspect, ponder, gauge. Not all actors do it, okay, but a fair number, and he is of that lot.

He thinks of his face as... adequate, for example. The lines are straight, the skin is, he knows, more than okay, he kinda likes his eyebrows. Nice features. _Useful_ features. Elijah's satisfied with his square jaw, a comforting, masculine shape to cup his own hand around, one side, then the other, feeling the sparse stubble there. It gives him weight, somehow, yeah. It's cool. But he doesn't like the way his jaw becomes his neck, a manly neck too, for sure, beefy and large... at odds with the rest of him. Still, it's also a useful feature, it's helped him look older in the past, or more impressive physically perhaps, than if it had the slenderness of say, his wrist. No, no resentment on the neck front, only aesthetical disapprobation. That's what it is.

His eyes are the same, actually. Elijah always thinks of them as precious tools for his trade and duh, his life, first (like now, this moment when they rove over his exposed self in the mirror, expectant, relaying precious signals to Elijah's brain to measure and store, to experience), second as an element of what makes _others_ find him, strangely so, pretty. Thirdly, and only when Elijah's in a bad mood, he thinks of them as enemies. Fucking failing eyesight, fucking sensitive cornea hurting from the contacts, fucking huge bulgy eyeballs that make him look like a frog and are all critics ever fucking focus on.

Not _pretty_ , no, despite their color, which he recognizes as (admittingly) lovely. His mouth isn't either. Nicely defined, sure, but too well-shaped to be masculine, too thin to be sexy, no plush and tempting girly lips, and too... precise, too small to be appealing in that soft and open way that Dom's mouth is. For instance.

Elijah shuts his eyes fast, not fast enough to miss the reflection of his lips even thinner, clamped together on the sudden blast of disappointment. He's never found himself pretty, but he's never been upset about it. Before.


End file.
